


Just Don't Go Into Retail

by Black_Knight



Category: The Good Wife (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-25
Updated: 2012-09-25
Packaged: 2017-11-15 00:44:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Knight/pseuds/Black_Knight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mara Stokes is the former investigator who appeared in "Blue Ribbon Panel" with advice for the younger version of herself. I liked her and her dynamic with Kalinda, and this is a story about what could happen if Kalinda ever goes back to Mara's wine shop. Set after the season 3 finale. (Written for randomizer's Kalinda/Mara prompt for sweetjamielee's Summer 2012 Ficathon, and expanded at the urging of randomizer and others into a longer Kalinda/Alicia work.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [Pas dans le petit commerce](https://archiveofourown.org/works/617778) by [hotladykisses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotladykisses/pseuds/hotladykisses)



> This is revised slightly from the version originally posted in LiveJournal: I fixed mistakes and made other minor edits. I also added a new Mara scene which I'd always intended to be part of the story, but which I did not have time to write before.

“Looking for a nice cabernet?”

Kalinda can’t help but quirk a corner of her mouth upwards. Mara certainly has a talent for sizing people up on sight.

“Or perhaps a rosé,” Mara offers with an ironic smile, and Kalinda smiles back.

“I’m not here for wine.”

“So what can I do for you this time, Kalinda Sharma?” Mara asks as she puts one hand on her hip. Kalinda isn’t surprised that Mara has found out her last name in the days since their first encounter.

“I thought you might like to get back in the game.”

Mara’s eyes narrow, and she waits.

“I’m leaving Lockhart Gardner, and I want to make sure the firm and its clients are taken care of before I go.”

“I did tell you to get out while you can, before it’s too late.”

“It is too late.” Far too late. But Nick is in town now, and they’ve already talked once. He knows Kalinda fired the incompetent lawyer who’d been assigned to her case, for making a call without permission that enabled Nick to finally find Kalinda after years of searching. When Kalinda vanishes again, Nick will resume his search for her in any number of ways, but he won’t bother to ask Alicia Florrick.

“I’m sorry to hear that. But I’m not interested.”

“Twenty years of retail? How long is enough?”

Mara looks at her sharply.

“You told me that you had access to the state’s evidence locker. Cuesta and his co-counsel alibied each other for when the photos were left for that juror.” Kalinda pauses. “Which leaves you.”

Mara has stilled. Kalinda continues, “The detectives made a quick case against the obvious suspect, and handed it over in a neat package. Cuesta said he didn’t have time to review all the evidence in all his cases, and you didn’t either. And you weren’t really needed on this one. You found the credit card slips after the verdict, when you were closing everything up, didn’t you?”

Mara sighs. “Twenty years Patrick Rooney spent in prison. Once I was certain he was guilty, and then for twenty years I didn’t know either way. Retail...doesn’t compare to any of that.”

“You were a good investigator. It’s time to come back.”

Mara shakes her head. “In our line of work, we tell ourselves that the ends justify the means. And then one day, a situation happens in which the ends don’t.”

Kalinda knows from the “our” that she has Mara hooked now - once an investigator, always an investigator - and has anticipated this objection. “Diane Lockhart. You don’t know her, but you will. If you’re ever not sure, ask her.” Diane knows exactly where to draw the line between idealism and pragmatism. Alicia is too prone to the former and Will to the latter, though both are learning. But Diane already knows.

Mara thinks that over. “I do have a standing offer for this store.” She cocks her head and looks at Kalinda with a sharp smile. “But what’s my brief? The truth now.”

Kalinda bites her lip. But she’s already decided to trust this woman to replace her at Lockhart Gardner, and to be sure Mara does that right, she has to tell her this. “Alicia Florrick. She’s your priority. Any personal issues as well.”

“Peter Florrick’s estranged wife?” Mara gazes at her with comprehension and pity. “Kalinda, even retail would have been better.”

“Will you do it?”

Mara moves past her to the entrance of her wine shop. She flips the sign to “Closed” and locks the door. “Yes. When are you leaving?”

“Tonight.”

Mara moves close to her, and when she sees no resistance in Kalinda’s face, she bends forward and kisses her. Her lips are warm against Kalinda’s. She takes Kalinda’s hand and leads her up the stairs to the apartment above. In Mara’s bedroom, they both strip and fall on the bed together. Memories flash through Kalinda’s mind: A kiss flavored with wedding champagne. Orange notebooks chronicling damning information. Each thrust of the man above her cementing a letter of her new name. A pale, still face framed by straight dark hair.

And even though Kalinda wasn’t there, she thinks too of photos left for a juror, a discovery of credit card receipts, long years spent stocking wine bottles. She and Mara had had an immediate connection, and as their bodies merge together, Kalinda knows that both their passion and their connection is fueled by a common knowledge of grief.

After, Mara studies Kalinda as she sleeps. She doubts Kalinda would ever ordinarily have fallen asleep, but the woman was exhausted in every way possible. Mara wraps herself in a robe and heads downstairs. She picks up her cell and selects a number, then hesitates. Suddenly she wishes she could consult this Diane Lockhart, but she cannot ask Diane for advice when she has yet to even meet her. Once again, she is on her own, photos in her hand, trying to decide what is right.

Finally she hits the call button. “Yes, hello. Can you put me through to Alicia Florrick, please.”

******************************

“Yes?”

There is so much menacing ice in the woman’s voice that Mara is thrown off balance. She’d had to tell the receptionist something in order to be put through, but she hadn’t expected this immediate hostility.

“You’re calling regarding Kalinda Sharma?”

Mara waits. Staying silent is a useful tactic when she’s not sure of her ground.

“Is this the FBI? Agent Delaney?”

Mara hangs up. She wants to help Kalinda, but if Kalinda is mixed up with the FBI in a bad way, she really, really has to know more before she makes a move. She’d ruined Patrick Rooney’s life when she’d had much more information at her fingertips, and she’s horribly aware of how much she doesn’t know about this situation.

Alicia gazes at the phone in her hand in cold fury. Then she opens her drawer and finds Lana Delaney’s number. When Lana answers, Alicia snaps, “Did you just call me?”

“Uh... _Alicia?_ ”

“Did you?”

“If I call you, I’ll tell you.”

“That’s funny. Because you weren’t revealing yourself when you were watching us on that spycam.”

Lana is obviously furious now too, because she hangs up.

Alicia all but slams down the phone. If it hadn’t been Lana, then...the receptionist had said it was a woman on the line. Someone working for Kalinda’s husband?

Alicia picks up her cell and dials Kalinda’s. There is no answer, so Alicia leaves a voicemail. “Kalinda. I just had another call, I think from your husband. You said you’d take care of this. So take care of this.”

Unfortunately a cell can’t be slammed down the way a landline can. Alicia is sick of it all, Kalinda and Kalinda’s seemingly endless complications. She’s not even Kalinda’s lawyer now. And thinking back to that conversation upsets her too.

_“You’re fired.”_

_“What?”_

_“I want my files.”_

_“Why?”_

_“You know why.” Kalinda holds out her hands for her files, and Alicia reluctantly gives them over._

_As Kalinda goes to leave, Alicia asks, “Is Diane handling your case now?”_

_Kalinda looks back at Alicia with blank eyes. “It’s not your business anymore.”_

The call had been routine, Alicia insists to herself. Part of Kalinda’s tax work.

******************************

Mara hasn’t had time even to head upstairs before Kalinda comes running down, already fully dressed. She tosses a package on the counter. “You’ll need to mail that.” Something buzzes inside it, and Kalinda hesitates, then ignores it. She puts torn-out notebook pages on top of the package. “These lay out what you need to do for the next few days for the firm. After that, it depends on what comes in. I’ve called Will and told him you’re my replacement. I’ll get my case files out of my car.”

She blows out the door, and Mara picks up the pages and flips through them. She is unsurprised to see that the to-do list is headed by every task involving Alicia Florrick’s cases. Kalinda comes back, lugging a box. She pulls out a print-out of her calendar and lays that down in front of Mara as well. “Where you need to be when.”

Mara looks at this too, and it’s routine enough. Except...”You’re in court a lot.” She peers at the case names and her memory cross-references them against the to-do list. “Almost all of these are for Alicia’s cases.”

“Things get raised during questioning. It’s good to be on top of that. I’ve helped win a few cases that way.”

“I understand that. But _closing arguments?_ ”

Kalinda stops moving around and looks at her. “Alicia likes that. She needs to see you as an ally, or you won’t be able to help her with the office politics or her personal issues.”

“Okay, Kalinda. You need to tell me some things.” Kalinda inhales, and Mara points out, “I’m flying blind. I can’t help if I don’t know enough.”

So Kalinda tells her about the people at the firm that Alicia deals with most, her two kids, her interfering mother-in-law, and her affair with Will. That last one is hard, but she knows Mara is right. Peter, Mara already knows about from the news and from her old contacts...except for one thing.

Kalinda avoids it as long as she can, but eventually Mara gets at the heart of it herself. “Why are you leaving so quickly?”

Kalinda swallows, and says carefully, “Peter Florrick did something to help me. If I don’t go, it’s going to come out. His run for governor will be finished, and Alicia will be hurt by the fallout. You need to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Kalinda gives Mara one last item, and then she’s out the door.

******************************

“Alicia. I’d like you to meet Mara Stokes.” Will is standing in the doorway of Alicia’s office with a blonde woman.

“Hello,” Alicia says politely.

“She’s replacing Kalinda effective immediately.”

Mara steps forward, hand outstretched. “I’ll be on all your cases. If you need anything at all, just ask.”

Alicia reflexively takes Mara’s hand, but Mara can see she’s stunned. “Kalinda is–”

“Gone,” Will confirms.

Mara interjects, “Tonight. She’s leaving tonight.” This is all she dares say, given how little she still knows about Kalinda and Alicia’s relationship, but the most important fact has been gotten across: Kalinda is not gone yet. She watches Alicia, who is clearly divided.

“Alicia? I know it’s a shock,” Will says with concern.

Alicia pulls herself together all at once. “It’s for the best.” Her voice is cool, and Mara’s heart sinks.

Will and Mara leave, and Alicia stares at her cell. She’d told Kalinda to take care of the problem. Well, Kalinda had.

******************************

Of all the ways Kalinda has hurt her, Alicia thinks as she looks across to where Mara is sitting in Kalinda’s office (still Kalinda’s to Alicia even though it’s been two months), this is the strangest.

It’s the uncanny valley phenomenon, Alicia decides. True, Mara couldn’t be that much more different from Kalinda physically. But they speak in the same cryptic manner, they share a particular kind of world-weariness, and they’re both incredibly insightful, quick to spot that clue that can turn around a case.

Alicia has loathed Mara Stokes from the moment she met her. She is so much like Kalinda, but she is not Kalinda.

The rest of the firm’s lawyers seem to have no problem with this impostor, this changeling. The transition has gone smoothly, and Mara is very good at her job. Alicia has seen no decrease either in effort or in the quality of the work on her own cases.

This just makes Alicia loathe Mara more.

As she reluctantly works with the woman, she comes to recognize another difference between Kalinda and Mara besides the obvious physical disparities. Mara has an easier, flowing manner, like water, with a rather smug way of implying how much she knows, or senses, about someone else. Alicia hates it. And she’s viciously glad that she does hate it, because she doesn’t want to think this woman is an improvement on Kalinda in any way.

She doesn’t want to consider what that means, right now.

In Diane’s office, after they finish discussing a case, she asks Diane who selected Mara. Diane looks up from paperwork, slightly surprised. “Kalinda recommended her.”

So Kalinda knew Mara. She picked a woman so much like her...Alicia can’t deal with that either right now.

“Mara’s done an excellent job taking over,” Diane finishes, mostly to fill the silence.

“She’s not quite as professional as Kalinda,” Alicia says.

Diane stares in disbelief, one of her quintessential Diane stares, and Alicia is flustered. “In wardrobe, yes, but I’m referring to her comportment, her demeanor.”

Diane considers Alicia for long seconds before replying. “Kalinda was a little more buttoned-up. But Mara’s an investigator, not a lawyer. You have to work with her.”

Alicia nods and gets up. She’s almost reached the door when Diane calls after her. Alicia turns around, and Diane takes off her glasses. “Just call Kalinda.”

She already has. Alicia remembers as she walks back to her office. The first time, she was so angry she decided she would hang up as soon as Kalinda answered. She was only calling to make sure Kalinda was alive, and that was all.

Her call went straight to voicemail.

The second time she called, a week later, she was less angry and more willing to bargain. She decided she would at least speak briefly with Kalinda, if only she answered.

Voicemail again.

The third time she called, the next day, she was bargaining again: If only Kalinda answered, this time she wouldn’t hang up, and this time she wouldn’t just exchange perfunctory pleasantries. This time she would say...what? _Come back._ She didn’t know, really. She didn’t know what she would say when Kalinda answered. And it was “when,” because third time’s the charm.

There was no charm.

Alicia sits in her chair, and she feels how tight her chest is. She puts a hand on it and tries to breathe, and suddenly she flashes back to another time she did that – watching Amber Madison and Chelsea Handler giggle about her alleged frigidity on national television. And that leads to another memory.

_“Want me to talk to her?”_

_“What would that entail?”_

_“Just talk.”_

Kalinda had offered to intercede with Amber for her. Why, Alicia suddenly thinks, didn’t she offer to help with Kalinda’s husband? Kalinda had been her client. She’d made the call to him that put him on Kalinda’s trail, for god’s sake. But she’d just told Kalinda to handle it.

“Can I help?” Mara is standing in the doorway, an unsettling not-Kalinda shadow of that other time. Alicia hates her even more, and she hadn’t thought that was possible. She seriously wants to throw something at her, see if she’ll shatter into a million pieces, see if once this Mara shell drops away, Kalinda will be revealed.

“I’m fine.” Alicia does not add a thank you. That had been for Kalinda, that other time.

******************************

A few days later, she’s in Will’s office. Will is leaning back in his chair, steepling his fingers, when Alicia suddenly asks, “If Kalinda wanted to come back, you’d hire her back, right? I know Mara’s done a good job. But there’s really enough work for two investigators.”

“Yeah, Alicia, sure,” Will says slowly, with a shrug. Not unkindly, and though he doesn’t say it, Alicia reads it all right there: He’s written Kalinda off, doesn’t believe she’s ever coming back.

She sits for a few seconds quietly, struggling. Finally she blurts, “Have you _heard_ from her?”

“No.” Will lifts a pen and then lowers it again. “That’s Kalinda, you know. Don’t take it personally.”

There is no way she cannot take this personally.

She barges into Kalinda's office the next day, and Mara looks up, pleased. Alicia doesn’t have time to be annoyed by this. Instead she closes the door and says without preamble, “Kalinda tracked down my daughter one time.”

Mara frowns, immediately pulls her laptop closer. “She’s missing again? What’s her cell number?”

“So you do know how to do that. You can do that.”

“Yes, of course.”

“I don’t need you to track Grace’s cell. I need you to track Kalinda’s.” Alicia hands over the phone number.

Mara boots up the appropriate program and enters the number. In a minute she has the history, and she turns the screen towards Alicia, jabbing a finger at the pulsing dot. “LAX.”

“She’s there now?”

“No, the phone’s dead. But that’s the last place. Weeks ago.”

Alicia absorbs this. “So she ditched the phone there and caught an international flight.”

“Most likely.” Mara feels so sorry for her. She’d mailed the package with the phone in it herself. LAX Lost and Found. Old trick for throwing off searchers. It had worked, but surely Kalinda hadn’t meant it for Alicia.

Alicia is lost in thought. “India, maybe, to blend in.” She chokes a bit. “As if she could blend in with her boots in India.”

“Alicia–”

Alicia puts up a hand. Forces a polite, acknowledging smile for Mara, who did help her. Walks out, and doesn’t, doesn’t cry.

Mara has no idea where Kalinda is. But she knows where Kalinda isn’t: Not in California, and not in a foreign country.


	2. Chapter 2

When Mara comes into work the next morning, she sees Alicia standing by her office, gazing in through the window.

“Alicia. Were you waiting for me?” Mara knows the answer is no. Alicia hates the sight of her so much that she sticks to communicating with Mara via e-mail unless the alternative is absolutely unavoidable.

She tries, “You know, if you wanted something out of Kalinda’s office, as a memento - she left so quickly, but it seems she did have time to pack her belongings first.”

“Kalinda never kept one personal thing in her office,” Alicia says as she walks away.

She wouldn’t have had to, Mara thinks. Who needs a framed photo of her loved one when the flesh-and-blood person is right across the hall?

Mara sits at her desk and mentally reviews the last few months in frustration. She hasn’t gotten nearly as far as she had hoped.

She had learned early on, through the always useful workplace gossip grapevine, that Alicia had been Kalinda’s lawyer, and that Kalinda had fired her the day before she left. But she can’t find the case files. They’re not in the firm’s archives or in Kalinda’s office. She had broken into Alicia’s office after hours, and been unable to find them there either. Kalinda probably had taken the files with her, meaning there was key information in them. But asking anybody about the case is a nonstarter - she has no plausible justification to give Will or Diane for why she wants to know, and Alicia certainly isn’t going to tell her anything.

She’d checked Kalinda out enough to learn that Kalinda Sharma is a false identity, and not one set up by witness protection. With more work, she could find out Kalinda’s real name and background, but making those kinds of inquiries could stir up trouble, put undesirable people on Kalinda’s trail. She’d changed her name for a reason.

She had asked an old friend, now with the FBI, to check into whether Kalinda was a subject of investigation. The word came back that, no, she never had been - her name had come up briefly in an investigation of Lemond Bishop, but that had dead-ended. And Kalinda hadn’t mentioned Bishop.

There is something there, though. Early on, Alicia had grudgingly introduced Mara to him as the firm’s new investigator.

“Where’s that other one?”

“She decided to move on.”

Bishop had continued to smile pleasantly, but it hadn’t reached his eyes. “I hope her departure didn’t have anything to do with that little issue.”

“No, that was handled.”

“Good. I’d hate to think that she had made some sort of deal with Agent Delaney.”

“Absolutely not.” And after Bishop left, Mara had seen Alicia’s mask slip just slightly, and she could understand why. Bishop was someone who had people killed. It appears that Kalinda hadn’t been too far from making it onto his hit list, and that’s yet another concern to keep in mind.

It had occurred to Mara that Peter Florrick might have helped Kalinda set up her new identity. That also brings up the possibility of Alicia having been involved, though the timing doesn’t seem right. She had had her FBI friend also check into whether Peter was currently being investigated, and again the answer was no. Further inquiries would, once again, potentially open up a can of worms, and Kalinda had specifically instructed that this secret stay buried.

Then there’s Alicia. She knows that Kalinda and Alicia had had serious problems - in addition to Kalinda firing Alicia, a second-year associate had jokingly told her over drinks not to feel bad, because Alicia hated all her investigators.

Mara is stymied. Everything is either a dead end or a lead it might not be wise to pursue. She wants to help Kalinda, not hurt her further; and she’s supposed to protect Alicia. Alicia probably knows quite a bit, but Mara can’t be entirely sure where she stands. Alicia obviously misses Kalinda, but on the other hand, she let her go, said it was for the best. And her husband, the father of her children, is involved somehow.

She thinks of the burner phone, the last item Kalinda gave her. Kalinda first called a few days after her departure, and Mara had been able to report that everything was running smoothly. She’d said that Alicia was stoic and reserved, but apparently that was normal.

By the second time Kalinda called, a month in, Alicia’s disdain was starting to manifest itself. When Kalinda wanted to know how Alicia was, Mara understated, “She doesn’t like me very much.”

“Are you doing everything I told you to do?”

“Yes,” Mara said. It all seemed to have the opposite effect on Alicia than one would expect. Mara had even kept up Kalinda’s habit of going to closing arguments, when there was no good reason for an investigator to bother. Whatever Kalinda claimed, she had just liked to watch Alicia in action.

“So what’s the problem?”

“I think I remind her too much of you,” Mara replied. She instantly regretted it, because for safety’s sake she’d been whispering, and whispers don’t convey tone well, and she and Kalinda weren’t face to face. She knew Kalinda would take it the wrong way, and tried to clarify, but Kalinda had already hung up.

Alicia has only gotten worse since. She rolls her eyes whenever someone compliments Mara, and is walking around with such a stormy look on her face that people have taken to avoiding her. Apparently she had used to be the one called in when a client needed handholding, but that duty has shifted to Cary Agos, and Alicia is now the one called in when a client needs to be frightened into line. She’s also become the go-to attorney to use in court when the firm wants to rip a witness into shreds. It hasn’t served as sufficient outlet for her hostility, though; Alicia has seemingly endless stores of anger. Especially towards Mara.

Kalinda’s due to call again soon, her monthly check-up. Mara thinks about what she is going to say.

******************************

Mara is at the reception desk getting a package when a brunette woman curtly announces, “Agent Lana Delaney for Alicia Florrick.” She immediately heads off in the direction of Alicia’s office and Mara, recognizing the name, quickly follows.

“Where is Kalinda?” Lana demands. She feels Mara behind her and turns, annoyed. Mara slips by her, and ignores the matching glare Alicia shoots her. She’s had a lot of practice with that, and she can’t pass up this chance to get information.

“Do you have a warrant? A subpoena? Otherwise, Ms. Sharma’s whereabouts aren’t your business.” Mara notices Alicia isn’t bothering to mention she’s no longer Kalinda’s attorney.

Lana leans forward, hands on Alicia’s desk. “I know she’s gone off the grid. I’m going to find her.”

Alicia stands up and mirrors Lana, her eyes on fire. “I don’t know if anything ever actually went on between you. But all this over a woman who hasn’t left you a phone number or forwarding address? She doesn’t want to see you or talk to you. You’re sad and pathetic.” Hearing her own words, she winces inside. But she stays focused on Lana.

“If I decide to look into this, and ask Ms. Sharma, what will I learn, Agent Delaney? Stalkers don’t just turn stalkers overnight.”

Lana’s uncomfortably aware of what Alicia could unearth. For starters, there’s the job offer to Kalinda, in which she’d implied that sex would be expected from her subordinate - unethical at best, sexual harassment at worst. Turning Kalinda’s IRS audit into an excuse to investigate her after Kalinda had rejected her offer - easily painted as retaliation. Allowing a subject of an investigation to have sex with her in her apartment - hello, conflict of interest, not to mention the violation of about a dozen other rules. It had been one thing to play these games with Kalinda, as she was the type to want to handle things herself rather than report Lana. But an angry lawyer with an attachment of her own to Kalinda and her own ideas on how best to handle the situation is an entirely different story. Lana’s law enforcement career will be ruined if this all comes out.

“Well, I don’t suppose Kalinda is doing any further work for Lemond Bishop, since she’s left Lockhart Gardner and Chicago.” Having thus signaled her retreat, Lana exits with as much dignity as she can manage.

Alicia sinks into her chair. Mara says, quite sincerely, “That was impressive.”

Alicia lets out an exasperated huff. She neither wants nor needs compliments from Mara. But...“Could the FBI find Kalinda in India, or Pakistan, or wherever it was she flew to?”

“Eventually. It’s good you called her off,” Mara says carefully.

“Could _you_ figure out which flight she took from LAX the day her phone went dead, and track her from there?”

Mara knows that’s impossible, since Kalinda was never at LAX. But she can hardly tell Alicia that. “Most likely not. Especially if she traveled under an assumed name.”

“Yes, she would have,” Alicia says definitively, and Mara senses something there, that Alicia probably knows that the Kalinda Sharma name is assumed as well.

“Well, then. She could be using any name. And half the names on those flights are going to be ethnic ones.”

Alicia sighs. It’s not entirely what she wants to hear, but if someone like Mara wouldn’t be able to find Kalinda, at least Kalinda should be safe from her husband then. She had already successfully eluded him for years. _Until that call. It was routine, though._ Alicia’s seen to Agent Delaney and Lemond Bishop.

Mara’s still there, and Alicia knows she owes the woman something. She reluctantly acknowledges, “I know I haven’t been welcoming.” Mara lets that understatement slide.

“It’s just, that–” Alicia stops herself. She can’t say it. Especially not to Mara, not to one of Kalinda’s women.

******************************

Alicia is about to enter her office when the sound of laughter causes her to look across the hall to Kalinda’s office. Cary is there, joking with Mara. Alicia shoots them a repressive look and says, “Please remember this is a workplace.”

Cary follows her into her office. “You don’t have to be so hard on Mara.”

Alicia sits down and faces him. “What about you? I always thought you had a crush on Kalinda. You’ve just forgotten about her?”

Cary sighs. “I miss her, Alicia.”

Alicia shakes her head a bit, and Cary begins to leave. Then Alicia says, “You know, I didn’t win the competition because of Will. I won because of Kalinda.”

Cary turns back around. Alicia’s face is almost smug as she continues, “Kalinda told me about the deadline. She told me what to do. She said I needed to win, because there were no jobs out there. She didn’t mind _you_ being jobless.”

Cary smiles slightly. “Okay, Alicia.” He pauses. “Just call her already.”

“You’re the second person to tell me that. Clearly, neither you nor Diane have bothered calling her, because if you had, you’d know that she won’t answer. She dumped her phone,” Alicia spits.

“She really is gone then.” Cary stares out the window for a few seconds. When he looks back at Alicia, he has the I’ve-got-you-now smirk he wears sometimes during cross-examination. “It’s too bad you didn’t tell her any of this when she was still actually here.”

“Any of what?”

“Come on.” Cary gives her a knowing look and leaves. And Alicia’s moment of victory has turned to ashes. She gets up and closes the door after him, and then leans against it. She tries to summon her anger, oh-so-familiar by now. She reminds herself that she had sworn that the first time she had cried over Kalinda, after Andrew Wylie’s revelation, would also be the last. And yet, even though she squeezes her hand on the doorknob as hard as she can, silent tears start sliding down her face.

******************************

Kalinda calls at the start of the third month, and Mara tells her that Alicia isn’t doing so well. It’s another understatement: Alicia’s still putting in the necessary work on her cases, but otherwise she’s plunged into a miserable state of depression.

Kalinda assumes it’s one of the kids or Peter or Will, and Mara understands that Kalinda really doesn’t have a clue. They have to keep the phone call short, so when Kalinda demands to know if Mara can hold up her end and take care of Alicia, Mara just says yes.

After they hang up, Kalinda stares at her phone in frustration. Every part of her wants nothing more than to rush back to Chicago and help. Alicia is supposed to be okay. Kalinda had left in order to make sure of that. She reminds herself that Mara is smart and competent - Kalinda’s kept track of how Alicia’s cases are progressing, and can tell that Mara is indeed doing the work that needs to be done on them. Kalinda has no reason not to trust Mara’s judgment that she can handle whatever is troubling Alicia. But she still doesn’t like it. She turns grimly to the one thing that’ll make her feel better, her computer.

******************************

“Do you have a moment?” Mara asks Diane. Diane gestures for Mara to take a seat.

“Have you ever had a situation where the way you need to do your job isn’t the way the client wants?”

Diane chuckles. “Every time I’m representing a judge or another lawyer. Richard Cuesta was the most recent one.” She sees Mara flinch slightly at that name. “We won, but he never stopped complaining about how he hates lawyers, because he didn’t like the tactics we had to use.”

“But doesn’t what the client wants matter?”

“Client service is vital to our staying in business,” Diane acknowledges. “The important thing is to do due diligence. Look for a way to make the client happy and still win. If you really think it over, and honestly can say that there isn’t another way, then you have to do your job. Whether the client likes it or not, that’s what they ultimately hired you for. They may fire you afterwards, but you’ll know you did your job.”

Mara nods.

“I take it this isn’t a Lockhart Gardner case. Or you’d be giving me specifics.”

“I would prefer not to.”

“Hmmm. Does it involve Alicia?”

Mara maintains a poker face, but it’s that poker face that tells Diane her guess is correct. She’s been suspicious of how Mara has been favoring Alicia in the same way that Kalinda used to do. It hadn’t made sense initially, because Alicia has disliked Mara from the beginning. Kalinda had endured the coldness and stayed devoted, but the two of them had actually been friends once. If Alicia and Mara had ever been friends, Diane had blinked and missed it. But after Alicia made Diane think about the fact that Kalinda was the one who chose Mara to replace her, certain theories had presented themselves.

“You don’t have to tell me the details. But if you can get Alicia back on track, do it.” Alicia has never been quite right since her friendship with Kalinda ended, and Kalinda’s departure has made things worse. The anger phase had been useful for the firm – Diane doesn’t have time to deliver every needed smackdown herself, and Cary is just as effective at handholding, so Alicia wasn’t missed there – but this depressive phase, not so much.

“Thank you, Diane.”

Mara is getting up to leave when Diane asks, “Do you know Richard Cuesta?”

“I was his investigator once, a long time ago,” Mara admits. “Kalinda never mentioned that?”

“No. Clearly she felt it wasn’t necessary.” Diane looks at Mara with an appraising eye.

“That’s how we met. The Patrick Rooney case was one of my last cases as Cuesta’s investigator.” It’s as close as Mara will come to a confession, but she knows it’s enough for a woman as smart as Diane. She waits for her judgment.

“Kalinda has a talent for discretion. And I see what she saw in you.”

Mara smiles in muted relief, and leaves. To take care of that business with Alicia, Diane hopes. Diane actually doesn’t like Alicia much, but she is valuable to the firm, both for her lawyering skills and her connections, and so Diane does protect her. That mess with the missing rider, for instance. There’d been a reason she’d sent Kalinda to get Alicia’s “best memory” of events, and it wasn’t because she was interested in the truth. If she’d wanted that, she would’ve questioned Alicia herself, or sent another lawyer – anyone but Kalinda. But for Diane’s purposes, Kalinda had been perfect: If Kalinda was able to figure out from questioning Alicia where the rider could be found, wonderful. But if Alicia _had_ screwed up, Diane had been perfectly aware that Kalinda would cover it up, not let Alicia say anything too stupid or incriminating on the record, and ultimately create enough reasonable doubt about what had happened that Diane could avoid firing Alicia. The firm needs Alicia.

(Plus, Diane may not like Alicia much, but she doesn’t like seeing her so unhappy, either.)

******************************

Alicia is on her third glass of wine at the bar she and Kalinda had last been at, when Mara shows up. It’s the final desecration, this doppelgänger sliding onto Kalinda’s stool. When Alicia had turned around that stool, she’d had such a strong feeling of the _rightness_ of it, that Kalinda’s place was by her side. Instead Mara is sitting here. Alicia reflects that if she were sober, she would probably tell Mara to leave immediately or she’d start screaming. (And that reminds her of the day she ordered Kalinda out of her life.) In her tipsy state, Alicia instead looks into her glass with resignation and tries to block Mara out.

Mara had waited before entering the bar for just this reason. An inebriated Alicia is likely an easier Alicia to handle. And when several minutes pass by and Alicia has neither run away nor ordered Mara to leave, Mara finally speaks. The mere sound of her voice immediately prompts one of Alicia’s classic eye-rolls, but she at least lets Mara finish her question.

Alicia takes another sip of her wine, and then another. In a moment, her glass is empty again. Finally she replies, in the rambling manner of someone under the influence, “What I was going to say was, I used to think what Kalinda did for me was special. And then for a while I thought it wasn’t. And then I started to think again that it was. And then she left, and you arrived. And you do everything that she does, so it wasn’t special after all. Just what an investigator does. I suppose.”

“Alicia.” Mara’s voice is so insistent, Alicia actually looks at her. “Kalinda did everything because she’s in love with you.”

A disbelieving look comes over Alicia’s face, but Mara steamrolls on. “I’m not doing all this for you. Your cases usually don’t warrant effort above and beyond the other cases, and you’re not the most important lawyer at Lockhart Gardner. But you were the _only_ important one to Kalinda. I help you because she asked me; that’s why she hired me.”

Alicia simply stares at her in utter shock. Finally she manages, “Go. Just go.”

Mara gets up to leave, but she leans in to say one last thing. “And just for the record, someone with strictly platonic feelings doesn’t act the way you’ve been acting.”

The bartender has to make several attempts before Alicia registers him. When she finally understands his question, she says, “Water. Bring me a water.” She wonders how much of the room’s spinning can be attributed to the wine, and how much to the words she can’t even really absorb yet.


	3. Chapter 3

That had taken place on Friday evening. When Mara comes into work the following Monday morning, she is not surprised when Alicia pounces on her before she can even get her office door open. Once they’re inside, Alicia closes the door, and they sit down.

Alicia gets right to the point. “Kalinda hired you to look after me?”

“Yes. She told me that you were my priority.”

“Okay.” Alicia pauses for a second. “But is that it? She just turned her job over to you, and – hasn’t looked back?”

Mara reaches into her drawer and takes out the burner phone. She lays it on her desk in front of Alicia. “She calls to check in on you. Once a month.”

Alicia stares at the burner like it’s simultaneously the most wonderful and the scariest thing she’s ever seen. “Call her,” she says abruptly. When Mara doesn’t reach for the phone, Alicia grabs it herself.

 “Alicia. It’s a burner. And she’s calling on a burner. The number is blocked. She knows this number because she gave me this phone, but I don’t know hers.”

“When is she calling you next?”

“Three more weeks.”

“That’s too long.” Alicia puts down the burner. “Do you know where she is?”

“No. And I haven’t looked for her.”

“What about the LAX lead?”

Mara smiles wryly. “Okay. Kalinda had me mail her cell to the airport’s lost and found. She knew anyone who tracked it would make the same assumption you did, that she must have flown to Asia.”

“And you maintained that, when I had you track her cell. You knew she wasn’t ever at LAX.”

“She’s in hiding. I’m trying to protect her.”

“I wouldn’t have–” Alicia stops, forces herself to calm down. “I want to protect her too.”

“I know that now. I wasn’t sure of anything then.” The problem had been Alicia’s anger; Mara doesn’t trust angry people. In her experience, anger turns a person into a wild card, not the best thing to have in play in a sensitive situation. And some of Alicia’s anger had definitely been directed at Kalinda.

Alicia decides to let this drop, and moves on to her most important question. “Can you find her?”

“Maybe. But there’s a lot I don’t know, Alicia. Kalinda didn’t give me many puzzle pieces.”

Alicia smiles in fond exasperation (and what a switch, she recognizes, that she’s not just plain exasperated by Kalinda’s usual secret-keeping). “That’s Kalinda.” As she looks at Mara, she thinks, some people give candy or flowers or diamonds. Only Kalinda would give her a Mara. That thought pulls her up short, and she tries not to get carried away. But – her chest isn’t so tight, there seems to be more air.

Mara notices how different Alicia is this morning, happier, younger. Something in her face has eased. And she hasn’t glared at Mara once.

“So, I’m thinking that if we put what we each know together, we can figure this out,” Mara says. “What about that FBI agent? And the case you were handling? I can’t find the case files.”

“Kalinda made me give those to her, and she must have kept them.” Alicia explains about the IRS audit, and Agent Delaney dragging Lemond Bishop in. She’s interested to learn in return that there was never an official FBI investigation of Kalinda: Lana hadn’t meant to be anything more than a nuisance, the schoolboy on the playground pulling the pigtails of the girl he likes, kicking sand in the face of a perceived rival. That actually made sense, because a true investigation should have turned up Kalinda’s false identity, and Lana had never given any indication of knowing about it.

Mara has just moved to that particular topic herself. “I’m assuming you already know that Kalinda Sharma is a false name.”

“Yes. Her real name is Leela. Leela something. And she must be from Canada, or at least have lived there before. She had a check from a F&E Construction in Toronto, that’s tied to her husband.”

“Kalinda’s _married?_ ” When Alicia doesn’t say anything, Mara pulls her laptop to her and looks up F&E Construction. “This is going to take me a little while.”

Alicia nods and leaves. She goes to her own office and does some work on her cases, albeit absentmindedly. Eventually Mara comes in and sits down, making sure to close the door first. She sets her laptop down wearily on Alicia’s desk.

“This is shell company upon shell company. Forensic accounting is not my forte. I could make calls up there, but–”

“No. Bad idea. But I know who we can call.”

Alicia pulls a number from her drawer, and briefly explains whose it is. She dials and sets the phone to speaker mode. Gestures at Mara so that she knows not to talk.

After a few rings, the call is picked up.

“Hello, Blake? This is Alicia Florrick.”

“Alicia.” Blake sounds amused. “How are you?”

“Fine. I’m calling, because, you used to say things to me about Kalinda. You’d call her Leela?”

“You’re finally asking about that?” Blake chuckles.

“I didn’t want to get involved.”

“And now you are, huh?”

Alicia waits, and Blake finally says, “Well, I’m sorry to tell you that the two of you won’t be getting gay-married anytime soon.”

Alicia and Mara roll their eyes at each other, while Blake continues, “Kalinda’s already married.”

“That’s not true.”

“Well, I guess you’re right. Kalinda isn’t married. Leela is, however. She married Nick Saverese seven years ago in Toronto.”

Mara writes that name down while Alicia feigns shock.

“And you know the kicker, she left because she got bored. I’d be careful, Alicia. You’re not the most exciting person. You were married forever, you’ve got kids.”

“You’re sure it was just that.”

“Husband checked out fine.” Alicia looks at Mara and shakes her head once.

“All right, thank you Blake.”

Alicia reaches to end the call, but Blake asks, “Do you seriously not know the rest? Didn’t that Andrew Wylie tell you? Your precious Kalinda/Leela had sex with your husband. He changed her name, and she slept with him.”

Alicia hangs up. Mara raises an eyebrow and says, “I take it that’s the reason for the animosity I heard about.”

Alicia just says, “Kalinda told me her husband is dangerous. I saw her fear. Blake missed something.”

Mara looks up Nick Saverese on her laptop. “He does come up clean. No record. Which could simply mean that he’s careful, and has escaped the notice of the police. All those shell companies – he’s probably very well-insulated.”

Alicia nods, and Mara closes her laptop. “But, Alicia. Kalinda didn’t mention anything to me about her husband. She said the reason she was running was because otherwise something your husband did for her was going to come out. She said it’d ruin his campaign and that you’d get hurt in the fallout. So, she was referring to the identity change and the affair?”

“He hired her to work in his office, too. Corruption, sexual favors – they couldn’t prove that with Peter before. But wait. Kalinda’s husband found her a few days before she left. That can’t be a coincidence.”

Mara thinks for a minute. “She can’t go to the police, or even that Agent Delaney, about Nick. To do that, she’d have to admit who she really is. Leela Saverese.”

Alicia connects the dots. “And she’d have to explain how she got her current identity.”

“What do you want to do?” For Mara, this is the true test of Alicia’s loyalties.

Alicia looks out the window and thinks about how Peter had said Kalinda was blameless. She turns back to Mara and says, “Try to find Kalinda. I have to go somewhere.”

******************************

Peter is surprised when Alicia appears in his office, but when he sees her face, he clears his calendar for the next hour.

“I need to talk to you about Kalinda.” Alicia pauses, and then asks, “You set up a false identity for her?”

“Yes. She approached me, and wanted help hiding from her husband.”

Alicia nods. She struggles for a moment before she can bring herself to say this next part. “Peter, I know you said she was blameless. But I can’t believe this was quid pro quo, that you would take advantage of someone in her situation.” Despite herself, a pleading tone has entered her voice. “I know you.”

“ _You_ know me. Leela didn’t.”

Alicia stares at him for a few seconds, as the horrible truth sinks in.

“I would never have,” Peter says quietly. “But we misunderstood each other. I thought she was attracted to me. She thought it was a condition for my helping her. You know this world I’m in. So many favors are being done, for so many reasons, that we lose sight sometimes. Why do you think I hired her? I thought she was a good person to have in the office, that she’d be an ally of mine after I’d helped her. I wouldn’t have thought that if I’d understood.”

“So when did you learn the truth?”

“When I found out she was investigating me for Childs. I confronted her. She said she didn’t owe me anything.”

“And you talked about it. Then.”

“Yes. And we were both embarrassed, and we agreed that we’d never talk about it again.”

Alicia shakes her head. “There was an inherent power imbalance. You should have recognized that. You should have been better.” Part of her wants to slap him; the thought of how Kalinda had perceived the sex makes her feel ill. And of course Kalinda wouldn’t have said anything to make Peter realize what was happening, or to make Alicia understand; she never did. She didn’t turn in her husband, she didn’t report Lana Delaney. Lana had nearly gotten Kalinda killed by Lemond Bishop, but had Kalinda told her lawyer anything even then? There had been _something_ to know, obviously, since Alicia had been able to use the specter of it to blackmail Lana into backing off. She'd insisted, regarding Peter, that it was just what she did. Alicia has seen it in clients, so she gets it: Kalinda doesn’t want to feel like a victim, doesn’t want to feel she’s ever not in control.

“I know.” Peter can’t help but show a little anger in return. “And I paid. The woman I had this one encounter with became the one woman my wife could never forgive me for.”

Alicia’s tone is reflective as she says, “After we became friends, Kalinda was the one person who I thought was completely on my side. That’s what hurt the most.”

“Trust me, she was never _my_ ally. When I saw she was becoming important to you, that’s why I didn’t stop it. I knew it was genuine.” Peter sighs. “And I certainly never thought that what happened would ever come out.”

They’re silent for a moment, while Alicia deals with her conflicting emotions. Finally she says, “Peter, I know it was a long time ago, and that you’ve learned from your mistakes. I still think you’d be a good governor, better than Kresteva. You’re Zach and Grace’s father. I don’t want to hurt you.” She pauses, then says firmly, “But if it comes to it, you did do this.”

“Kalinda’s husband has found her?”

Alicia nods. “She left town to keep this from coming out. But it’s not her responsibility to keep you from facing consequences, not at the expense of her safety.”

She sees a glimmer of Peter’s ruthlessness on his face when he says, “There are things that can be done.”

“I have a few ideas of my own.” They look at each other.

******************************

Mara tells Alicia flatly, “That Agent Delaney wasn’t kidding. Kalinda is off the grid.”

“She’s that well-hidden?”

“There’s no way she’s done this without help. I’m assuming it’s not Peter again.”

“No.” Alicia thinks. “We know where her cell is. What about her computer?”

“She left it here. Scrubbed it clean, of course. I’d need NSA-level software to get anything out of it.”

Alicia has an inkling of something. “She wouldn’t be without a computer, though, would she?”

“I can’t imagine it. She’d want to have internet access.”

Alicia leans forward. “The Bitcoin case.” Mara looks confused. Alicia briefly explains the case, then gets to the point: “One of the main possibilities for Mr. Bitcoin had a crush on Kalinda. He left a love note for her before he vanished into thin air.”

Mara understands immediately. “That is someone who knows how to go underground. And could help Kalinda do the same.”

Alicia sits back in her chair again and sighs. “Great. But that still doesn’t get us anywhere. He can’t be found any more than she can.”

“No, but then, we don’t really need to find her. We just need her to call me.”

“If you’re going to say that we should just wait three weeks–”

“No, no. That wouldn’t get her to come back.” Mara gets up. “Let me work on this.”

“Mara.”

Mara turns around.

“You said you weren’t doing all this for me. Which means you’re doing this for her.” Alicia pauses. “Why?”

“She rescued me from a rather frustrating career in retail,” Mara says lightly. Alicia just pins her with a look, and Mara sighs. “She was kind to me. I made a terrible mistake, years ago, and she was kind to me about it, even though I don’t deserve it.”

“Are you – were you–”

“Not like you’re imagining.” Alicia raises both eyebrows, and Mara sighs again. “It was...sad. She’d made terrible mistakes too.”

Alicia looks past Mara. “I understand that better now than I would have before.” She thinks about her own mistakes, not helping Kalinda with her husband, letting her leave. And then there’s the first, the one she’s tried so hard not to admit even to herself.

“I was the one who enabled Kalinda’s husband to find her. I found that check from F&E Construction, and I was curious, but I didn’t want to ask her about it. So I just called the number. I started all of this with a call.”

“We all do things, Alicia.”

******************************

Alicia finds Mara maddeningly elusive over the next few days. Whenever Alicia does manage to speak with her, Mara says only that she’s carrying out her plan. “Kalinda’s smart, and paranoid, so this has to be played just right. You know what usually makes things go wrong? Going too fast.”

So Alicia buries herself in her cases, while Mara carefully sends up signs of smoke. Just a wisp to begin with, nothing that would ever be spotted on its own, but will lend credence to the fire when Kalinda backtracks. A bit more smoke each day.

And after a week, Kalinda calls Mara.

******************************

“It was the talk about computers that gave me the idea,” Mara explains to Alicia. “Kalinda’s holed up somewhere, Mr. Bitcoin’s hooked her up with a laptop, and Kalinda is bored. And she’s worried about you, because she’s always worried about you, and she’s also worried about her eight million secrets. So what would she do?”

“Um,” Alicia prompts obediently.

“She’d set up a bunch of alerts, not just for the big, obvious items like you, Saverese, or Peter, but all the little tiny details that are even remotely related. And she’d scan all the websites she can think of. So she can watch for potential problems.”

“I’m still not quite getting this.”

“Okay. We could have sent out a fake press release, something about you being in a horrible car accident, and she would have come back like that. But I’m sure you wouldn’t want to freak out everybody else you know, especially your kids.”

“I appreciate that,” Alicia says drily. “So this is a milder version then?”

“Yes. A cryptic comment on a board here, a blind item there, more and more smoke over the days. Not hinting at a scandal about to break, exactly, more like hinting at hinting at a scandal about to break.”

“Peter, right?”

“It’s nothing that will actually expose Peter, just enough to flush Kalinda out. Nobody else will notice, but Kalinda had too much time on her hands and nothing to do except look for trouble.”

“And she got worried enough to call you.”

“I told her that for this one, I need some help. Turns out she’s never been very far away.”

“Where?”

“She didn’t tell me that, but I know where she’ll be tomorrow morning. Milwaukee.”

Less than two hours away.

******************************

The next morning, Mara knocks at the door of room 227 of the motel Kalinda’s staying at, just a bit inside the Milwaukee city limit. Kalinda opens the door, and quickly motions her in. The first thing Kalinda wants to know is if there’s any chance Mara was followed.

“Not exactly.”

Kalinda looks hard at her. “What does that mean?”

“It means there is no emergency situation to be handled. I told Alicia everything.”

Kalinda’s eyes widen with fear and anger, and Mara really believes that Kalinda is going to hit her. She holds up a warning hand at Kalinda, and then the door is opening behind her, and Kalinda looks past her.

Alicia is standing there.

Kalinda looks at Alicia, and Alicia stares at Kalinda like she can’t quite believe her eyes. And then she charges at Kalinda and wraps the other woman up in her arms. She holds on tight, assuring herself of Kalinda’s physical presence, feeling Kalinda all against her, and _breathes_.

As Mara watches, Kalinda’s hands come up slowly, very, very slowly, and eventually rest lightly against Alicia’s back. At that, Mara quietly leaves.

Alicia finally breaks the hug, but stays close. Almost incredulously, she looks at Kalinda’s face and then up and down her body.

“It’s you. It’s really you.”

Reluctantly, because she’s a little dazed, Kalinda tells Alicia, “You shouldn’t have come.”

Alicia puts her hands on Kalinda’s upper arms and gazes steadily into her eyes. Quietly, but firmly, she says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t help you before. But I’m here now.”

“Mara said she told you everything. So you know–”

“About Peter. Yes.”

“Then you know what could happen. It’s best if I stay away.”

“No.” Alicia shakes her head and repeats, “No. We will figure this out.”

“If this all comes out, it’s going to hurt you.”

Alicia sighs. “I’ve been through that before. I’d like to avoid it. I think we can avoid it. But if that’s what happens, that’s what happens.”

“No. I am not going to hurt you again.”

Kalinda tries to twist out of Alicia’s grasp, but Alicia tightens her grip. “Would you tell me to sacrifice one of my children?”

“Of course not,” Kalinda says a bit impatiently.

“Well, that’s what this is like. It’s that fundamental.” Alicia takes a deep breath, and continues, “I evicted you from my life once. And I let you go once. I pretended I didn’t care. I’m not doing it again. I can’t.”

Kalinda starts to protest, but Alicia rides over her. “I _can’t_. You’re mine.” She moves her hands up to Kalinda’s face.

Their faces are very close now, and Alicia says again, “You’re mine.” On impulse, she closes the remaining distance between them and kisses Kalinda.

Alicia feels so much blood rushing to her head, it’s hard to hear or think. Their mouths break apart, and Alicia looks at Kalinda for a second. And then she kisses Kalinda again. Wraps her arms around Kalinda and uses her weight to push Kalinda backwards, to the bed. Kalinda half-sits, half-falls when her legs hit the bed, but she has hold of Alicia too now, and their kiss doesn’t get interrupted and Alicia falls on her.

Alicia pins Kalinda down with her hands and keeps kissing her. Somewhere in the back of Kalinda’s mind, a small voice is saying this is a bad idea, it’s going to ruin their friendship and she’s not worthy of Alicia. But Alicia is here when Kalinda wasn’t expecting her to be, wasn’t prepared for it, and she’s been out in the _cold_ for so long and –

Alicia lets her full weight press down on Kalinda, and the pure electric shock that runs through both of them leaves them stunned, lightheaded. Alicia hadn’t planned to do any of this, she’d thought they’d just talk. Alicia knows what Mara said, but Kalinda hasn’t said anything. Alicia eases up, pulls back a bit, because she’s practically caging Kalinda in here, and what if –

But the small voice in the back of Kalinda’s mind has gone silent, and she reaches up and starts working at the buttons of Alicia’s shirt. Soon all their clothes are gone, and as Kalinda’s pulling Alicia’s hand downwards, Alicia says again, “Mine.” Later, when Kalinda puts her mouth between Alicia’s legs, Alicia thinks but doesn’t say, _Yours_. She’d recognized the nature of her feelings for Kalinda after Mara’s words, but the strength of them now shocks her. They roll over again, legs intertwining, unable to stop. Kalinda thinks of how ice burns hot, that this is exactly what this is.

******************************

A long while after, they lay side by side, not really touching because neither of them is exactly a cuddler, and try to put their minds back together. Then Alicia looks at Kalinda, and a short laugh escapes her. To think that Kalinda of all people is the one. The _one_. Kalinda looks at her questioningly, and Alicia lets out another short laugh, and then Kalinda’s raising her eyebrows and Alicia’s laughing harder even while doing the half eye-roll that indicates that she’s aware she’s being ridiculous. She is so beautiful then that Kalinda can’t resist kissing her. Their teeth knock together, but Kalinda’s persistent and after a little while, Alicia stops laughing and starts gasping.

******************************

Alicia looks at Kalinda’s bun and can’t believe it: It’s definitely messier, but somehow still relatively intact. Alicia asks, “Doesn’t it _hurt?_ " as she tries to pull out the pins. Kalinda smirks, and pushes Alicia’s hands away and reaches up herself. Her hair falls down loosely over her shoulders, and Alicia is simply undone by the sight. Kalinda looks softer now, more vulnerable, and Alicia kisses her very gently. This time she goes much slower, looking for and soaking up each new bit of information about Kalinda, from the small scar on one calf to the exact curvature of her back.

******************************

Finally they talk, just a bit. Alicia wants to know where Kalinda has been, and it turns out to be Minneapolis. Kalinda drove six hours overnight to get here. She can’t help but yawn as she says this, and it’s not that far from nighttime anyway. So Alicia suggests they sleep, and Kalinda doesn’t insult Alicia by asking about the kids. It’s obviously Peter’s night with them.

They lie on their sides and don’t spoon, but Alicia does keep an arm thrown over Kalinda’s upper body. The arm lies lightly enough on Kalinda, and Alicia has actually fallen asleep first, but Kalinda suspects that if she were to move, that arm would be as good as an alarm. And normally Kalinda would never put up with this, but, she had been able to tell as their bodies came together that Alicia’s been through a lot in the last few months. That their separation had hurt Alicia in ways Kalinda had never intended. So she’ll tolerate the arm this once for Alicia’s sake. (She ignores the secretly happy twitching of her heart.)

******************************

Alicia has Grace’s soccer game at noon. So she calls Mara in the morning, and holds the phone up so Kalinda can lean in too, and the three of them discuss strategy. As Mara had suspected, Kalinda does have a lot of incriminating information about her husband. As the women talk, Kalinda silently remembers how she wrote down the details she’d gathered in those orange notebooks, as she came to the conclusion that she had to get away from her husband.

They agree that Mara will fan some more smoke, this time up in Canada, make the police there get interested in Nick Saverese. Mr. Bitcoin will help, since he can get into government computers that Mara can’t, in order to manipulate data, trigger audits, make trouble for Nick. (Alicia asks who Mr. Bitcoin really is, and Kalinda refuses to say. It isn’t her secret to tell, and she’d be betraying people who had helped her. _People_ , because all three of them had, actually - Bao and Elaine because they liked her, Stack because he appreciated that she’d never shared her suspicions with anyone else.) Nick’s flown under the radar for so long, and if he has an investigation ripping open his life, he’ll be distracted, and a lot less eager to have back the wife who could hang him. He might cut a deal with Leela that allows her to divorce him. And maybe the Canadian authorities never make a connection to the Kalinda Sharma living in America, and to the politician who’d helped her.

“This is not a foolproof plan,” Kalinda tells Alicia after the call is over.

Alicia shrugs as she puts on her jacket. “It’s the best we have. If this doesn’t work, Peter can try.”

“And what if he fails too, and it all comes out and ruins his campaign?”

Alicia bends down to Kalinda. “We’ll have tried not to let that happen. But I won’t sacrifice our life for it.” She gives Kalinda, whose eyes have gone wide and stunned, a kiss.

******************************

Alicia comes down the steps to where Mara is waiting in the parking lot of the motel.

“All good?” As if Mara really has to ask. The previous morning, after she had left the room, she had just headed right back to Chicago. It’s no surprise to her that Kalinda and Alicia ended up spending all day and night together.

“Yes. But please just keep an eye on her until this is over.”

“She does have a knack for getting herself into trouble. But she’d want me to look after you.”

“This _is_ looking after me.”

Mara laughs. “You two are like a Möbius strip, ends leaning up against each other, an endless loop. Don’t get me wrong, but I’m going to be glad to get off. It’s two joined into one, not three.”

She moves past Alicia, but Alicia turns and calls her back.

“You know, there is room for two investigators at Lockhart Gardner. I asked Will about it a while ago.”

“I do like it there.” Mara flashes a grin. “And I won’t work on any of your cases anymore.”

“The occasional one would be okay. When Kalinda’s really backed up.”

“Okay. But I’m not going to sit in on closing arguments.”

Alicia smiles at her, a genuine smile, before walking away. Mara turns her face to the sun, suddenly feeling renewed. It’s strange, she thinks, how each of the three of them had been stuck in place, and because of each other, they’ve all begun to move again. And Mara can really begin now at Lockhart Gardner, now that she can set her own priorities.

Somewhere, Patrick Rooney has started his new life too. Mara can’t ever make up for twenty years in prison, for being a young, overzealous investigator who didn’t want to see a man go free who she believed had murdered his pregnant wife. But she’s done some good here. And she can go on doing good. It’s certainly better than retail.

******************************

Inside the room, Kalinda is still feeling dazed. A day ago, she’d had no life at all. Months ago, she’d had an apartment so clean and white and unsmudged, no traces whatsoever of an actual person. A place of suspended animation, really, nothing permanent. And now, not only a life but a whole future has suddenly unrolled before her, one so impossible she’d never even considered it.

There are lines, though. She’s not going to be baking any cookies for those pimply Florrick teenagers. No. They’d live apart, she’s not going to be playing mom, or stepmom, or any variation on that. The very idea is ridiculous.

But if Grace or Zach got into trouble, she’d help. Alicia can’t be happy when one of her kids is in trouble. Fixing that would be just like helping on a case. But she’s not a mom. Of course, if one of them asks her a question because they’re about to screw something up otherwise, she’d answer, and with the truth. She doesn’t know how to talk to a kid any other way, if she has to talk to one at all. But she’s definitely not a mom. (Although she has an uncomfortable suspicion that Alicia would say that these are the actions that matter.)

When the kids are gone, off to college, maybe they’d still keep living apart. There certainly isn’t going to be any damn wedding, ever. Although, if Alicia absolutely insisted, maybe there could be something tiny, a justice of the peace, just the two of them. Oh, and those kids, because Alicia would want the kids. But that’s it. And only if Alicia really, really, really, _really_ –

“Planning your wedding?” Mara smirks from the doorway.

Deciding just how hard Alicia would have to insist is not the same thing at all, Kalinda believes, and there’s also the little matter of the way Mara went against her instructions. She glares.

Mara puts a hand on her hip and reminds Kalinda, “You said, ‘Personal issues as well.’”


End file.
